Last chapter, Ana slapped a guy at a dance club! That’s really all you need to know I guess.
Chapter 15
Ana wakes up after her night of heavy drinking and is like, “Oh yeah, I slapped someone last night! My palm is red. I wonder if this is how Christian’s palm is after he spanks me!” Oh, Ana, you’re so curious and deep.
Things almost get interesting for a second between Ana and Christian when he tells her it would turn him on if she showed a little resistance in bed. Wow, discussing a sexual fantasy and seeing if his partner is comfortable with it! CHRISTIAN DOES SOMETHING RIGHT EVERYONE!
Ana goes and makes the scene idiotic, of course:
What’s this about? Brawling? Fantasy? Will he hurt me? My inner goddess shakes her head—Never. She’s got her karate suit on, and she’s limbering up.
At least in Bared to You Eva mostly thinks like a rational adult. I’m in a shitty mood right now, so for some reason Ana’s complete and utter inability to connect with the world without using her fucking imaginary friend. Oh, I’m sorry, INNER GODDESS, is pissing me off more than usual. And OF COURSE it’s about fantasy, Ana. Christian wouldn’t actually want you to ever fight back unless he explicitly tells you to. Have you met your life?
So…to get into the spirit Ana does this:
Taking a leaf from his impressive repertoire, I lean forward and kiss him, pouring clear cool water into his mouth.
He drinks. “Very tasty, Mrs. Grey,” he murmurs, sporting a boyish and playful grin.
Their “fighting” lasts for like half a page, which is actually good news, except it’s bad news because then it just becomes the same 1,000 pages of sex we’ve already read.
Because James needed to quickly find a way to “make something happen,” a really forced conversation occurs between Ana and Christian. Basically he’s like, “Wow, it was so cool you called the shots,” except the thing is, she didn’t. He told her about something he wanted to try in bed, she “fought” him off, then finally stopped resisting (which doesn’t count as calling the shots), then told him she wanted to stop the foreplay and have sex (again, she’s done this before). So basically they’re acting like somehow this scenario was different in that Ana somehow had power (I’m still not seeing it), and Christian says he’s never done anything like it before because Ana’s the only woman who could touch him.
This leads into a conversation about Evil Cougar who used to touch Christian when she was the dominant. See how James had to really force the conversation in this direction?
So Christian admits he’s now not proud of what he and Evil Cougar did even though in the past he said their relationship saved him. I guess this book couldn’t be complete unless we vilified her even more! And showed how much better Ana is for Christian!
Glad everything is now perfect…OR IS IT??
Take Our PollYeah, the next morning she sees Christian walking around outside, and this happens:
Christian casually bends to pick up what looks like a bamboo cane that must have been blown over or discarded in the flowerbed. Pausing, Christian absentmindedly holds out the cane at arm’s length as if weighing it carefully and swipes it through the air, just once.
So this leads Ana to worrying if he misses being a dominant. The really weird thing, though, is that there’s a bunch of filler that comes between this scene and when Ana actually addressees the issue. Even though we’re in her head all the time, she doesn’t actually tell us she’s worrying about this. In the middle of a conversation with Christian about going back home after Aspen she’s just like, “Do you miss it?” And she’s talking about “caning and stuff.” It’s so strange. Usually we get a few pages worth of Ana-angst before she talks to Christian. He says he’s into vanilla now. Aw Ana saved him from the evils of BDSM, but sometimes they can still play, she says.
Ana and Christian exchange e-mails when she goes back to work. There’s some crap foreshadowing where Ana’s assistant starts to tell her she moved a doctor’s appointment around (Ana needs to get a shot as her form of birth control). OMG YOU GUYS ANA IS TOTES PREGNANT! Shhhh we don’t know yet, though ;).
For some reason some of the story is now told through e-mail. Ana and Christian are apparently having hot sex (WHA?? NO WAY!) and Hyde is currently in custody awaiting trial.
To create some drama, James has Leila show up at the end of the chapter to talk to Ana at work. OH MA GERD!